A good amount of restaurant owners and managers don’t come from strong financial backgrounds. Maybe you started off cooking. Maybe you’re more about the bigger picture brand concept. Maybe you’re all about interpersonal employee communication. But even if you come into the job without a lot of accounting experience, learning how to handle your finances
Practical Magic: How to Navigate Your Restaurant’s Charitable Giving
Bell ringers. Kids going door to door. Countless envelopes arriving in the mail daily asking for your end of the year donations. Even customers and staff get in on the ask. They all want your charitable donation. They probably all represent excellent causes that deserve your support. But you can’t do it all, can you? With
Pro Bonus: How Your Restaurant Can Handle Holiday Bonuses
Money, money, money. It’s part of what makes the holiday season so challenging and fraught with anxiety for so many people — small business owners and restaurateurs especially. Even if you’ve just had the best year of business yet, profit margins are small and the coming months are looking unpredictable. And then there’s bonuses. A
Second Life: How to Start Planning for Your First Restaurant Expansion
Whenever a restaurant finds success and a solid customer base at its original location, the idea of expansion usually starts creeping into the restaurant owner’s mind. Expanding into a second location has its pros and cons, depending on the health of your business right now and the strength of the market at large. Opening a
How to Avoid Clashing with Your Restaurant Business Partner
Somewhere in-between “Two heads are better than one” and “Too many cooks spoil the broth” is the secret to a perfect restaurant partnership. As owners, it can be frustrating at times to have to deal with not just employees, vendors, and customers, but also the demands of a partner to whom you owe your loyalty
Open Book: Building an Open Culture for Your Restaurant Employees
Who wants to talk money? Often enough, the answer is nobody. Especially not when it comes to profit and loss at someone’s restaurant. But the reality is, so many of the decisions you make every day as a restaurant operator comes down to how that choice will impact the financial success or failure of the
How to Calculate How Much Money a New Restaurant Might Make
The idea of opening a new restaurant can be daunting. On top of finding and securing a location, executing an interior design, and finalizing the menu, you also have to set realistic revenue goals, decide how much staff to hire, and plan out your overall finances. Every new restaurateur needs to plan ahead for their
The Difference Between Sales, Revenue, Profit, and Cash Flow
All too often, we are at a loss for words when it comes to talking finances. It’s no surprise. Money is one of those few things our mothers told us was impolite to discuss in public. More than that, discussing money can make a business owner feel vulnerable and open to scrutiny — especially if
How to Build Your Restaurant Bar Inventory
Managing a restaurant bar can be daunting. Every concern, responsibility, and task you have for your food inventory is now doubled by introducing liquor to the mix. Twice as many distributors. Twice as many menus. More employees. More upfront expense. But if you’re successful, your bar can also generate more patrons and higher revenue. There’s
Flush It Out: 7 Tips for Your Restaurant Bathroom Renovation
It’s easy to overlook them as a particularly crucial element to your business, but your restaurant’s restrooms can play an important part in its success. A poorly maintained or dirty looking restroom can be a major turn-off in the guest experience. A survey recently conducted by SCA Tissue North America found that nearly one out
